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Should I get one? Are they actually any good? I'm trying to do a pro's and con's thing, it's mosty pro's, seeing as im travelling around a whole lot and wont have to carry as much, but i REALLY like having a book to read. Staring at a screen will just be a bit weird. It's cd shopping vs mp3's all over again. Fucking minefield.

trust me, it's not at all like staring at a screen, as it really looks like a page. Truth be told, unless you're the type to get caught up in all the romanticisms ("the smell of a new book", "the feel of the page between my fingertips", etc., etc.), I'd imagine that there are no cons from the reader's perspective.

It really does not look like an average screen, i'm sure you already realise that.Definition is pretty good but i noticed that when the screen changes suddenly it leaves a small imprint of the previous screen in ink, but nothing too noticeable.I think I would prefer an actual book, its rare enough that I will want to read more than one book at a time.

the e-ink thing is amazing. you'd be advised to buy a case for it and one with an LED light would be advised... if not just get a clip-on LED light from one of those dodgy chinese sellers on eBay and it'll set you back £1 or something. don't get the official case from amazon cos they'll rip you off £50. you can get really good ones around the £10-15 mark from eBay and Amazon market sellers. JUST A BONUS TIP THERE.

the kindle is only really good for text-only books (i mean opposed to technical books which have illustrations and lines of code etc). also the books themselves aren't as cheap as you might think, and are subject to VAT, which normal books are not.

the battery will last for weeks if you leave wireless/3g off most of the time. it would last even longer if you could actually turn the thing off. it never goes off, it just 'sleeps' (while displaying a picture on the screen). don't know the reasoning behind that.

minor gripes aside i do not regret my purchase. i have the wireless-only version. the 3g one looks like a waste of money.

except
- if you flick the thing on the bottom it turns off (blank screen)
- I have the 3g version which is great because I do most of my reading away from home - if I hit the end of a book in a series I can have the next one in a few moments, and that's the case anywhere in the world I'm likely to take a Kindle.

To echo the comments above, the screen is amazing. I've seen the Kindle app on the iPad and the thought of staring at that for hours on end is horrible. But with the Kindle, it's like reading paper, but with the added benefit of being able to re-size/re-space the text to make it easier to read.

And yeah, the display isn't even comparable to an actual Kindle screen. I'm fine with reading from a screen for long times (wasted my youth on the interwebs), and you can at least make it sepia rather than white, which helps.

<quote>E Ink is bi-stable, which means it needs no power to hold an image or page of text. No need for bookmarks— an E Ink Pearl-equipped reader can hold a page for weeks or even months, with no discernable battery drain.</quote>

It only uses power to change the image on the screen, once that's done it doesn't use anymore power - certainly not enough to affect the battery life at least. My friend got into hassle the other week on a plane with it. When they were taking off, the air hostess was like: "Excuse me sir, electronic devices must be switched off." Cue ten minutes of him explaining e-ink and trying to persuade her it was effectively "off".

It's amazing. It was free to download along with another 20, 000 classics. I find it easier and more pleasurable to read as you can change the font size and it's easier to scan the lines on a small screen than it is on a physical book.

and it is fucking awesome. I've got the 3g one, which meant that when I'd finished the first book in a series of 5 I just bought the next one and started straight away. My wife felt like a widow until I leant it to her, now I feel like a widower.

Get the 3G one so you can buy instantly (plus free web mail in about 100 countries can't be sniffed at, though the browser isn't great)

they look about as sexy as a haggered librarian and remind me of palm pilots just with a marginally better screen.

however, i'm tempted to get one so i can use http://www.instapaper.com to read lots more lengthier articles. but holding out for something that's more of a half-way house between a kindle in terms of screen and iPad in terms of functionality and obvs in terms of price... both seem pretty over priced for what they are capable of - a Kindle with say 100 book credits or some sort of Spotify-like library club, would make helluva lot more sense! Or if Amazon gave me all the books I've bought from them previously in Kindle format, I'd certainly grab on in a shot.